Me w/ my mom and Natalie, Summer 1996

Me, my mom and Natalie, Spring 1996

Above are a few pictures of Natalie before the 21st century. I believe these were taken when my sister was still "herself" by all accounts. In many ways I just hope and pray for her to maybe one day get back to the way she was back then. Maybe impossible, yet that is work I work towards. I believe that some events which occurred after this year over the next few years might've been the catalyst to her mental health condition evolving, and then the eventual diagnosis around 2004. So therefore, we are where we are today:

Natalie in our childhood home w/ no power, 12/27/23

Hello, my name is Rex, I work for a Home Health Agency in Minnetonka. I reside in a suburb of Minneapolis, MN, and I'm married. My family and I have modest incomes, and I am actually behind on bills and have no saved income, due to the strain that the pandemic put on us.

I'm asking for help to aid my sister Natalie, who is a mild mannered, yet introverted and vulnerable person. She has a schizophrenia mental illness, diagnosed over 20 years ago. She has chosen to not be on medication for almost the whole time since the diagnosis, and just lived with my parents in our childhood home in Milwaukee, WI, with no ill consequences until my parents passed away in 2021 and 2022. Afterwards the house was foreclosed due to a loan still being owed, so my sister was evicted from our childhood home this past April. Until the eviction, she had refused to leave our Milwaukee home, and did not have enough awareness to pay utility bills and the mortgage payment, nor did she seek help from Milwaukee County. I Surprisingly, she agreed to move up here to the Cities when she was kicked out of our childhood home.

Natalie functions well for the most part and is alert, however she cannot manage her own survival. If you asked her if she was mentally ill, she would say no, although in a meeting on 7/25 she let me talk about her mental disability to the rep at CRRC (an org that's helps Vets), and asked that a follow-up person contact me instead of her. That's progress, let me tell you! Natalie is a Veteran, with an Honorable discharge from the Air Force. Yet she did not seem to reach out to Veteran Affairs in Milwaukee to help her there. Natalie was very private with her personal info, so overall the family, including myself, didn't realize her service time made her a Vet. However once I realized this from her with seeing actual paperwork, I've been helping her get enrolled for VA assistance. In my reaching out for help and support, someone said to me that this process could take a year! As far as the date of this updated story 9/16, it's been 5 months!

She still is private with her personal info to a degree (which I have no problem with), however after my mom passed in 2022, I've just been gaining more and more of her trust throughout this whole ordeal, so that's aided in things probably going better than they could be at this point - especially getting the VA help going. Even though we're nine years apart in age, we got along well growing up. She even lived with me in Hopkins in the early 90s while she attended the U of M for a year (probably why she agreed to come up here). I was never living in Milwaukee during her 20 years with this disorder. Since being here, I discovered that Natalie actually gets a small, low-income benefit from the VA, however it's for very little money (only a little over $400 a month!). In order to get benefits to help her here, I've made sure to have a re-diagnosis assessment done by a mental health specialist from my job. Natalie needed a re-assessment done in order for her to get mental health services here. That's done, so now currently we are mainly working on getting her housing assistance. The VA is getting her the housing and support she needs, however that just seems like a long and arduous process. This facility named MAC-V, which isn't a VA org yet helps homeless veterans, had vouchered Natalie to an Extended Stay Hotel for 3 weeks until September 8th, however they now say the have no more funds to help Natalie, so we're back to using up what little money she has and me borrowing MORE money to continue keeping her safe in a hotel. She is eligible for a VA housing voucher, however there's no timetable for when that will happen since these reps I correspond with don't seem to realize that Natalie can give the appearance that she can manage her life, however SHE CANNOT. Her diagnosis explains this in detail. I have a Right of Information on file at the VA, however I still have to explain that sometimes when I'm trying to help Natalie get resources. She has had 1 on 1 meetings with reps and has muddled the process somewhat because she does not think she's MENTALLY ill, so she will give some answers and indicators that work against her getting care based on her mental health! People have told me that this will be a long road before we can get Natalie some stability and true help - and they were SOOO right!!! Still, Natalie has been safe, I have a cheap cell phone service set up for her (even though she was so isolated, she doesn't use her cell phone properly! Sigh, I'm working on it - she wants a flip phone! They're only like $30!), and we're hoping soon that her housing benefits will be implemented!

Since April, Natalie's been staying in cheap hotel rooms, and she can only put very little toward her room since she needs her small VA benefit for other supplies and food. I help her with what little I can, yet I have no extra money and I can't take out any more loans to pay for the hotels. She's a 50 year old, 5' 6" woman that keeps to herself. It would not be safe or feasible to place her in emergency housing or a homeless shelter; she would not do well around the other people. Rooming with anyone would put her on edge. She is not violent, and her mental disorder comes with an OCD factor, so she's very clean, neat and organized. We are SOOO thankful for the donations we've received so far, so currently I'm asking for a little more so we can afford keeping Natalie in the hotel she's in until the VA helps her find a place to live. Right now I can only afford to keep her at the present, cheap hotel until Tuesday morning, September 19th. She does well in hotels, and they appreciate her neatness! We're hoping the process goes quickly so we can stop this hotel expense! I had no idea this all would be so long and daunting! Mainly I'm paying to keep Natalie in the hotel longer, and I'm using some of the donations to pay off the $3900 I've already borrowed to keep her in the hotels. Family and friends have helped us as best as they can with thousands of dollars since the eviction date, so unfortunately they can no longer help us.

Everyday I'm gaining her trust a little more, although it's been hard since she does not have a full concept of reality and how things work. Still, she is family. Mentally she has not been sure of that in the recent past. Yet now she let's me hug her, and she'll say "Ok" when I tell her I love her. I make sure to help her make appointments, and I take her to them. I also take her shopping for food and supplies. She knows I'm trying to do my best for her, and that I'd let her stay with me if I could. And most importantly, I feel like she's actually connected with me again like I'm her REAL brother. Once she's settled, there will be less stress on her, me, and my family. I'm very happy to have Natalie in town, since by all accounts we were a close family. I believe that God, and the guiding spirit of our parents (especially my Mom!) has brought us to a decent place so far. If you could help my sister, that would be so great! It would get all of us to a place where our stress can be much further reduced. Thanks for taking the time to read all of this, take care, and God bless!